Life & Work with John Christian Phifer

Today we’d like to introduce you to John Christian Phifer.

Hi John, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
After spending 15 years in the conventional funeral world, serving families as a funeral director and embalmer, and managing a large funeral home in Nashville I wanted more, not just for myself but for the people I was called to help.

I felt the funeral industry needed to get back to its roots but at the same time evolve into serving people (and the environment) in a healthier way. In 2012 I made a leap of faith and left my position at the funeral home.

I jumped on a train and traveled the country speaking with folks about the end of life. I wanted to hear from them what they wanted for themselves but also what they didn’t. Along the way, I met many people, and being outside my bubble allowed me to learn so much.

My roots growing up on a small farm in West TN led me to love nature and have respect for all of its blessings. Working and living at my small-town funeral home at a young age helped me understand people and learn to care for my family, friends and neighbors.

Corporate funeral homes and cemeteries led me to question my decision to be a part of an industry and ultimately pulled me to question its motives and empowered me to step a foot out of line and become a leader in the natural burial movement.

Just a couple of months after my resignation and journey on train Becca Stevens and crew reached out with their hopes of creating a similar change to help people financially and the environment by making green burial an option in Tennessee.

The rest is history. Becca had a dynamic humanitarian spirit combined with endless connections in our community and I had the knowledge of caring for the land and the dead. In 2013 Larkspur Conservation a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to conserving land through a revival of natural burial practices was born!

We now manage 800 acres in Middle Tennessee and have partnered with The Nature Conservancy and TennGreen Land Conservancy to further protect our lands. This ensures they will always be the wild place we see today and a living memorial to those we love!

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The journey to creating Tennessee’s first nature preserve for natural burial has been the most difficult challenge of my professional career however the path to Larkspur has been met with open doors and a sort of divine kismet as if something else was at work here. Some may say God others could say mother nature herself!

Our biggest challenge was breaking down the misinformation and myths surrounding death and funeral customs in America. Most lay folks are just quite ignorant of the rules and laws and have no knowledge of what their options are. An example of this would be: embalming, caskets, and vaults or the use of a funeral director are not required by law.

Most folks cannot believe that they have just followed the leader… the one making the “rules”, the funeral director. This is all primarily due to death being an uncomfortable subject to speak about with family and friends and without a healthy societal example to follow we tend to follow the funeral industry’s lead and do what they want.

Because of this denial of death, we have outsourced one of the most important moments in our human lives. The death or saying goodbye to those we love and ourselves. We deserve better.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
After stepping away from the traditional funeral home environment I sought out ways to learn more in order to be better for the people I help.

I trained and became certified as a funeral celebrant, home funeral guide, and end-of-life doula. Now, I take my professional end-of-life knowledge and share it (not only with the families I help) with the funeral professionals I used to work so closely with.

It is a great honor to be able to teach them an old-forgotten way of caring for the dead and honoring our natural home.

Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
From Covid, I learned that making an end-of-life plan is important at any age. Whether that is completing a planning session with Larkspur or having a conversation with someone you love about your wishes.

Also, I take away from Covid the importance of family and close friends at a ceremony. Most large funerals have been downsized due to the pandemic and I have witnessed families having a more intimate space to mourn, create rituals and celebrate life within. the landscape at Larkspur. It’s the perfect canvas for that healing.

Without the exhausting reception lines and public visitations followed by a funeral [often led by someone who didn’t know the deceased}, families have found what is most important, not keeping up with the Jones’ but being with each other in a safe space.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.larkspurconservation.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/naturalburial
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/larkspurconservation
• Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/larkspurforever
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOaCuyN7iVxwicSS1Dyabog

Image Credits
John Brown Photography, Darien Photography, John Behtea Photography, and Larkspur Conservation